Japan, "Your Games Just Suck"

[Colin]

Seriously, I loved my Amiga, but the attempts to ape the Jap stuff on the system were just awful. When the guys over here just went with their own ideas they were amazing, I think cannon fodder is in my eyes the greatest game ever to come out of the UK, it's gaming nirvana. And don't even get me started on how much time I lost to lemmings.................

[nakamura]

Yeah I really enjoyed the Amiga too, but some games just didn't cut it. The games you mentioned were awesome, loved Lotus Challange too along with Moon Stone. There were loads of good western games back in the day and most were on computers.
Fighters/shooters and platformers though, Japan was better.

[ETC]

I missed out I only had an Amiga but the keyboard was broken oh and a pce

[sj33]

It was a very different type of gaming really. If purely looking at consoles, it would be fair to say that much of the western games were very middle-of-the-road and lacking in depth or imagination. But quick peak at the Amiga lineup (for example) shows that western developers certainly were producing gems. Cannon Fodder is indeed fantastic, and it bothers me that most people outside of Europe didn't experience it's greatness. Western developers really shone on the home computers, whereas on the consoles they largely seemed to attempt to outdo the Japanese developers at their own game (bar notable exceptions such as Desert Strike).

Japanese developers today just seem to lack ambition, and don't really seem to know where to find that ambition. The Japanese marketplace doesn't really help matters, which tends to be very insular and the kind of unambitious output from Japanese developers has been selling well. But western games are slowly beginning to find a footing in even the Japanese market, and Japanese developers really do need to step up the game if the want to continue to be relevent in the worldwide market. Only a few notable exceptions such as Capcom seem to have managed to do this. In don't think Inafune himself has done much to really further the cause, but he is right in identifying the problem. It's too easy to hide behind the 'all western games are shooters' argument as an attempt to defend Japanese developers for their failings.

[rmoxon]

Maken X, do I win a prize?

Never heard of Maken X. Youtubed. Appears to be a first person hack-n-slash em up? Not FPS (lock-on doesn't count). No prize.

Boo, ok and I want a bloody good prize for this one then

Cyber Driver, 2009, Arcade, Taito

http://www.siliconera.com/2009/12/16/cyber-driver-japans-arcade-first-person-shooter/

(aw yeah!)

Can't believe Breakdown (Xbox) hasn't been mentioned yet pfft.

Ok, I meant try and name a Japanese FPS that is actually good

[ETC]

Ok, I meant try and name a Japanese FPS that is actually good

No no no that was hard enough thank you very much

[ETC]

Best I can think of is GalGun but that's not strictly a fps

[Charlie]

Japanese games in general are probably weaker today than at any point I can remember. I know I have far more western games in my library/on my played list. It seems that for whatever reason they're less able (or maybe less willing) to move on and evolve than their western counterparts, but that said, Mario Galaxy, Tales of Vesperia, Bayonetta and Dark Souls are four of my favourite games this gen so it's not like they're a spent force. And the Japanese still piss all over Western developers when it comes to style and artistic impression - elements that can take any game and elevate it.